Service Project: Serenity Spring Sanctuary

Newest miniature pony, rescued from an abusive owner. 

He's afraid of anyone that enters his cage.

It took me about two hours to get to Serenity Springs Sanctuary. I drove from my house in Denton to Forestburg, Texas, where I spent thirty more minutes on a three mile stretch of Merrit Road, unable to get a cell signal to contact anyone. Along the side of the road, I was approached by a couple of locals, who when asked said they had no idea of a sanctuary nearby. I finally found it on my fifth pass, the gate and sign covered in rust, hidden by plants.

I came into this project only knowing that this was a small animal reserve. For my readings I was going to analyze firsthand the dualisms of how people treat animals, particularly using the readings of Plumbwood and Francion, and also anthropocentrism discussed by Callicott. Kowking little of what I was going to encounter for this project, I wanted to keep a broad range of topics I could analyze.

The sanctuary is run primarily Terry Degaw. She takes care of all the feeding, cleaning, and finances of the entire facility. She does this by working online every night doing freelance writing, writing about things she has no particular interest in. She said that she regrets not being allowed into college in the 50s because of being a woman. She relies heavily on the work of volunteers and the irregular donations she receives. Unfortunately, she says that not many people have a passion for pigs and never receives large, regular donations from companies. [It’s here where I hate being a student, paying his own rent.]

180 degree view from the middle of the area. Full Image Here.

I first received a tour from Terry. On her 25 acres, the sanctuary houses around 150 animals at any given time. Most of the animals were pigs, but also included were horses, donkeys, chickens, as well as cats and a few dogs. She showed me two blind horses she had rescued. One was used as a breeding mare, and when she got an eye infection, her eyes were allowed to basically rot out, because she didn’t need her eyes to make horses. It was here that Terry mentioned how people don’t care about animals for their lives, only for the profit they can make. Throughout the day Terry would continue to mention the dualisms people use to justify their ownership as well as the cruelty and neglect they force on their “property.”

While there I racked the feeding pathway, mowed a section of the entrance pathway, and helped construct part of a fence for group of new pigs that were being brought to the sanctuary in a few weeks. Unfortunately I had to leave to go to my job that afternoon, but I wanted to stay there all day. I only got to interact with a few of the animals, and some of the rescue stories are real tearjerkers. I plan on going back this summer and getting to interact with the animals more.

Serious business cutting fence ties.

During this trip however, what surprised me most was how much I learned that Terry has sacrificed to help these creatures. It’s obvious that Terry is a highly intelligent woman, but through her life has faced hardship and injustice. As a woman she was treated unfairly, and because of that decision has taken up the needs of others and helps them no matter what the cost. Her life has been directly effected by the dualisms set up by the society she lives in. Her funding is impacted that people don't care about pigs as much as other animals, because dogs and cats are more human-like and lovable. She struggles to make ends meet, but food is always bought, and the vet is always brought in. She says that they are her responsibility, and no animal deserves to die.

While I was there, she was trying to figure out her new iPhone, a gift gotten for and paid for by one of her regular volunteers. She had to try for awhile, but eventually showed me a picture of a horned toad she saw laying eggs on her property the previous week, the first she had seen in 20 year. She mentioned how they used to be everywhere, but that the pollution cause by the nearby oil well and natural gas farms literally next door had driven them off. She mentioned that the same had been for the fireflies. She posted this on her facebook wall:

"Nostalgia reigns. I saw a fire fly last night. It's been years. Where there is one there should be more. Remember them flickering in the dark by the thousands..eliminated by humans and their pesticides. I tried following it to look for more and forgot to step over the terrace wall. Yikes...I was alright and laid there still watching until it disappeared into the woods. The good ole days"

Web Links

http://www.facebook.com/serenityspringssanctuary

http://www.serenityspringssanctuary.org/

Angel Food

Growing up in a military lifestyle I have always seen many different walks of lives, from the fortunate to the less unfortunate. When I was younger each year my parents and I would donate the clothes I haven’t wore over a year to either shelters or Goodwill organizations. I was so eager to drive back, I think when I was twelve, I decided to go to the local shelter in my community and meet a girl that was around my same age and take her shopping for Christmas and not to receive anything from my parents, because all I wanted was to give back. This was the most touching thing I thought I have done to give back to my community until a couple of weeks ago. So this week I had the opportunity to volunteer with my friend Ashley at the Irving Cares Center. On the way there I thought that it wasn’t going to be much, possibly just like you see in the media with people handing out meals at Churches. However, I was wrong! The mindset that I had engraved in my mind was completely based on the media which was a little disappointing after I volunteer. We actually had got to prepare the food. We made spaghetti, with garlic bread, and had fruit for dessert. After that gave out the food, we got to sit down and talk with the people. There was on lady named Teresa that had twin girls. Their names were Bethany and Brittany. The little girls were so adorable, but the cleared their plates so fast they were asking for more. It seemed to me as if they didn’t eat that day or didn’t eat big meals too often. So I went to go get the girls a second plate and right once I gave them their plates their mother just started crying. I had asked her what was wrong with her, she replied that “She was so blessed that her girls were able to eat today.” I looked at her and smiled. She started to tell Ashley and me, the reason why they were there in the first place. She said that her husband had heart problems and they were in so much debt because of it. After the recession was put into play her job had to take away some of their health benefits, then let her go. This put them in major debt. She said that nine months later he passed away and that they are still in debt and that she is barely getting welfare checks to take of her and her two girls. Her husband was just a construction worker working under the table which affected them tremendously after her husband got sick. After listening to Teresa’s story working for just a couple of hours embedded in my mind that I am blessed to live the lifestyle I live and have all the luxuries that I have. After reading Bruni, he says “With a job like this one the learning curve is endless, and it takes you in directions you never expected to go.” This had me thinking that once I graduate I would want to give back in such a way that I did that day. According to Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008, Roberts says, “We can't wait for the perfect solution to emerge; we need to start transforming the food system today”. This experience touched my heart in such as way that I want continuing to help contribute to breaking this cycle of people who are uncaring and show more support to others in need with shelter and food.
As I was saying my goodbyes to everyone that was helping out at the Irving Cares Center, I took back so many things from it all. The main thing of it was that I gained helping a person or a family can honestly go a long way. Another thing I got from it was, not everyone has the same story and everyone comes from different walks of lives just as how I grew up. This experience was the best feeling I had from volunteering in a long time. I couldn’t believe that doing so little could go such a long way, and be a blessing in return.

seeds of hope

Green, the color once thought of health, substance, and abundance. Now a days this isn’t so, trees plants, and whole ecosystems are being destroyed at an alarming rate. To combat this, spread education, and help a better the planet, Earth day was created. Earth Day is usually celebrated at the end of April, which tends to be the being of spring; the nature blooming and spreading love and colors. The University of North Texas has steadily been on the right path to having a greener campus, they celebrate earth week with various actives, to promote a better way of life. On April 29 2011 the university gave the office of suitability the permission to table for Arbor Day. We passed out Red Bud trees for a few hours, giving expiations on how to care for them. Red Buds are native to Texas, so they will be able to flourish in this climate, we passed out about 350 trees, so that’s 350 ways to better the environment. Later that night we watched a documentary called “Taking Root” which was mainly about deforestation in Kenya. So in Kenya deforestation was happening on a mass sale, to increased the government and other industrial company’s profit with cash crops. Basically farmers gave up their native sustaining crops to harvest damaging cash crops, such as coffee and tea. These large cash crop farms are openly support by the government, which is governed by men of high ranking and power. The master narrative is officials say this is progress, to helping Kenya to compete a global market. “The hierarchy of meat protein reinforces a hierarchy of race, class, and sex.”(Adams) Men in Kenya, like in every other society are expected to be the provider, hunters of the family. While it is the responsibility of women to gather and make food for the family, but what can one do if there isn’t any food? Trees are cut down on a mass scale, to make room from the crops, and with cash crops the soil cant handle the amount of production that is need to make a good profit. So as a result the land is destroyed, barian to anything that tries to grow there. The system has a hierarchy system, with men at the dominant and control; while women are suppose to be submissive. Radically excluded, women have know say to nature- but are seen as the more nature or nursing gender (Peterson) Andorcentrism, male-centered mind set, as described by Pulmwood, is how this society works, men in control and thinking of everything and one else as the other. “ Way of looking at the world characterize of the dominant, white, male Eurocentric ruling class, a way of dividing up the world that puts an omnipotent subject at the centered and constructs marginal Others as sets of negative qualities. (Nancy Hartsock, Pulmwood 44) Having this dualism create a distinct difference between thee two genders, these only creates oppression for women. Wangari Maathai the leader of the Green Belt Movement, which was began to empower women to make a change for themselves and not keep a disenchanted state of mind. She had women of devastated areas that were destroyed regions plant trees. This small grass root idea slowly turned into political group to overturn patriarchy and elitism within the government. When high officials were question about how they felt about Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt organization, the thing they most often commented about was her gender. They stated she wasn’t being a good woman because she questioned me, but what she really was questioning the status quo, thusly becoming a deviant radical of the state. “Dualism can also be seen as an alienated from of differentiation, in which power construes and constructs difference in terms of an inferior and alien realm” (Plumwood 42) The Green Belt movement never used violence to get there voices heared. Using Intelligence, tenacity hard work and dedication, they were able to frighten the government. The Green Belt organized a hunger strike/ protest was to try to convince the government to free impressed rebels. As a result the army was sent in, attacked the women and other by standards, all of which were men using force to make the women summit. “The hunter loves not nature but how he feels in it as he stacks his pray”. (Collard pg. 4) Never the less The Green Belt as still able overcomes all obstacles to revolution the entire country. Wangari Maathai went on to be come the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. 40 million trees later the forest of Kenya wasn’t the only thing that flourished, but also a nation. Refusing to be claim what others think, will only hold one back. “Identify is expressed most strongly in dominate conception of reason, and gives rise to a dualised structure of otherness an negation.” Plumwood pg 42)

Its for the Animals..

I have always been a person who cared deeply for animals. Growing up I always had pets whom I cared more about than my toys; I was happy when they were and I felt their pain when they were hurt or sick.  However, until this class I only said I cared. I would donate money to the World Wildlife Fund or Defenders of Wildlife and then go about my carnivorous ways. I would drive by a pasture full of cows and say how cute they were and then eat a steak for dinner. After reading “Brave New Farm” realizing that 

“cattle may be dehorned and branded, and males are castrated, all without anesthesia” (Mason, 162) 

I found it very difficult to go home and eat that steak. Then the next day we read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, showing the reader a slaughterhouse for pigs and pointing out that 

“some were white pigs, some were black; some were brown, some were spotted; some were old, some were young; some long and lean, some were monstrous.” (Sinclair, 29) 

That day I decided I had cared too much for these creatures to let them die for me. I suddenly felt the way Mary Spears does in “Eyes of the Dead” when she says 

“there were tears in my eyes, I couldn’t understand, how could people be so heartless? How many have to die, for other people’s pleasure?” (Spears, 81)

            As a full time student with a full time job an hour away, I had a difficult time finding a volunteer opportunity. I wanted to do something with animals but all of the shelters require a volunteer orientation.

            I had been planning a trip to New York at the end of April, to visit one of my best friends who happens to be a vegan and very involved in the community. I found out that I would be in NYC the same weekend of the Third Annual Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. This year there was a bake sale at MooShoes (vegan shoe store) and all of the proceeds went to “for the Animals Sanctuary” in New Jersey.  “for the Animals Sanctuary” is a non profit organization that rescues animals from the “food-farming trade”, that Mason and Sinclair write of, and provide them with a safe, loving home to live out the rest of their lives. As someone who loves to bake, we decided this was perfect so I signed up to bake Vegan, Gluten-Free Brownies and volunteer at the actual sale.  

            The day of the Bake Sale I learned about this organization that I had never heard of until a week before when I signed up as a volunteer. “for the Animals Sanctuary” is located in Blairstown, New Jersey and provides a home not only to rescued livestock but domestic animals as well. They promote a vegan lifestyle to benefit “themselves, and the animals and the earth.”

            I took many things out of participating in this event. The first thing I gained is a deeper knowledge of the abuse animals experience in a factory farm, and knowing that there is someone out there who will take care of them if they can be rescued. The second, more superficial thing I learned, is that not all vegan organizations are psychotic and scream “meat is murder” which was a surprise. I am so glad to have had the opportunity to learn about volunteer, and raise money for this wonderful organization.

Blood for Oil?

             In "Shell Refuses to Pay For Oil Spill Pollution" Arthur Max points out that Royal Dutch Shell, a leading oil corporation across the world, has spent 40 years spilling oil through out the Niger Delta.

            When questioned on the cause Shell’s director in sub-Saharan Africa, Ian Craig points to criminal “sabotage for 70% of the oil spills over the past 5 years. (Max)” Since Craig and other Shell executives blame crime for the oil spills, they will not take responsibility for damages to the environment or citizens of Nigeria.

            Environmental activist groups, including Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth, have seen the lack of environmental justice in the Niger Delta and have taken on Shell to gain back the human rights of the Nigerian people. Both groups have taken the oil company to parliamentary hearings in The Hague (The Netherlands Political center).

            The issue environmentalists see with the way Shell has handled the situation in Nigeria is similar to environmental justice wrongs that have taken place in the United States since as early as the progressive era. In “Environmental Justice: The Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy” Robert Figueroa points out multiple instances of possible environmental racism:

            “two of CWM’s largest hazardous-waste facilities: one in Kettleman City, California, a community with a population that is 95-percent Latino, more than 40 percent of which speaks only Spanish; the other in Emelle, Alabama, known as the “Cadillac of landfills,” well documented in environmental justice literature because of its huge size and location in a predominantly African-American community.” (Figueroa,5)

            Unfortunately, the master narrative of the world not only puts people of color below white men still, but also requires the use of oil and the destruction of the environment to retrieve it. When the two come together, both the lose.

            While we are so quick to “clean up” an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, there is another across the world spilling constantly that no one will clean. NIMBY is right. As long as its “Not In My BackYard” and those people have to deal with it, neither the Global North or Royal Dutch Shell are going to help the Nigerian people any time soon. 

(http://jlnavarro.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html)

Cliché PR

Monsanto's PR campaign is the definition of a truncated narrative.

In these two pieces, published January 30th and March 30th 2011, Monsanto gives the purely one-sided bias of a corporation out to make a profit. Monsanto is the world's leading producer of RoundUp, and also the largest producer of genetically engineered seed, GMOs, and the technology to grow them. In these two PR videos, Monsanto discusses the benefits of American farming techniques, and how it hopes to further spread those techniques to other countries with the promise of food for all.

But in reality, Monsanto isn't trying to save the world; it's trying to trap the world in its grasp, with food it owns and the tech to grow it. They destroy country’s local markets and enforce its expanding global one, so they can better control prices and maximize profits. Monsanto's vision of "sustainable agricultural" for the world is an outrate lie; it is only a system to exploit the exploitable to fatten the wallets of American investors.

A May 2008 article by Vanity fair goes into some detains about Monsanto's past and current practices. They describe how Monsanto secretly investigates small rural farmers for infringements on its patents. Mansanto also downplays damages causes by chemical infections by its products, like those from a Nitro Plant explosion and veterans exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Monsanto treats second class citizens in its own country with little respect; it’s no surprise that they have no care for the poor in foreign lands.

In Vandana Shiva reading "Global Harvest" we discover how businessmen and governments around the world are the ones who benefit from trading with Monsanto. The ones lucky enough to own large amounts of land benefit from the high yield practices Monsanto provides, and the governments that support them gain a higher amount of taxes with the healthy exports. But the small land owners are the ones who are devastated. They take out loans to cultivate the genetically modified crops, the pesticides to treat them with, and the fertilizer for the harsh land. Most of them get trapped in a debt treadmill and are force to sell their farm to a larger one, where they'll then work for a few dollars a day. "Farmers are transformed for produces into consumer,"(Shiva, 7) where they export all their cash crops at "world value" and buy everything they need.

What ticks me off is the ability of companies to flat out lie to an audience that believes anything they see on TV. They can flat out deny the facts in their commercials and PR and there's nothing to stop them. The businesses have their hands in the government’s pockets, so no laws will be passed to stop this, and any individual speaking up will be sued for slander or even terrorism. You see this today with BP covering up dead dolphins in the gulf from the oil spill, and not a single news network has aired a word of the deaths. So, what have we done to deserve to live under a government that allows corporations to hide the facts so they can make a quick buck, completely disregarding the future consequences?

Images: 

Vanity Affair, By Melvyn Calderon/Greenpeace HO/A.P.

Huffington Post

Articles:

http://farmindustrynews.com/business/monsantos-mobile-display-teaches-how-americas-farmers-will-feed-world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT-ChdL8BbY

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805?currentPage=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/08/dead-dolphins-gulf-oil-spill-bp_n_846524.html

“Two kinds of flesh are served"

Through out history men have always played the role of the hunter, provider, and protector. While a women purpose is to fill in the roll of what ever the men were not nurturer, and submissive always inferior to man. Freud once said that all women have penis envy desiring the power and dominance that comes with it. These social constructions have been around for thousands of years, power lying with the elite white heterosexual male who once again controls the master story. “We know meat-eating races have been and are leaders in the progress made by mankind in its upward struggle through the ages”(Adams) Meat has always been linked with the higher class, only those with most importance could eat it giving way to intersectionality. The idea of patriarchy comes in to play with these individuals because they actually see themselves as different and better than everyone else, because of this makes it easier for reductionism and objectification to happen. “The hierarchy of meat protein reinforces a hierarchy of race, class, and sex.”(Adams) Having the mind set of excluding ones self of being other can lead to abuse along with cruelty reason being the “other” is deviant had isn’t worth of ones emotions. Within the Robert’s Steakhouse/ Penthouse Executive Club “Two kinds of flesh are served" (Bruni) . This glorified strip club is prime examples of how men are subject the controller and the market for this type of entertainment. Here not only animals are severed but also women combining two lower classes to be used, they have always been objects within history abused many times over with the use of reductionism of their strengths in short Hegemonic Centrism. In the elite white heterosexual male perspective the “others” point of view isn’t taking in to consideration manly with objectifying woman with their clothes and how they are told to act. Even the author of the article had an aura of superiority simply with how he described the women working in the club. “With a job like this one the learning curve is endless, and it takes you in directions you never expected to go. “(BRUNI) He even began to use adjectives that are no different than taking about a woman to describe how he felt when eating his dinner. “But no matter what your appetite for the saucy spectacle accessorizing these steaks, you’ll be turned on by the quality of the plated meat”. “(BRUNI) The dreaded male gaze most like it rampant and slightly encouraged within this establishment, consuming a prize worthy or better yet king sized portions of meat while looking at women body’s, (absent referent) not really caring about the person or her life but seemly what is there at face value. On the other in of the spectrum wall street employee Ryan Pacifico who just so happen to be a vegetarian was constantly bullied “for being a vegetarian homo," (Catalanello) One would think that some progress has been made within the twenty-first century as far as stereotypes go. Wall street is a fast paced boys club, not only is it difficult for minority and woman to get in but to prove that they are just as good if not better than their colleagues. With so much testosterone around dominance and power must always come in to play. “Meat was a valuable economic commodity, those who controlled this commodity achieved power”(Adam) So it is not surprising that within a society of elite men with loads of money still have the same mind set of meat being the only way to convey male dominance. Unable to see that deviating isn’t less powerful, "It's a ridiculous male stereotype that only real men eat meat." Rick Ostrove The only way to break the cycle of uncaring homogenization, is to take everyone and thing as its own entity having importance and intrinsic value or instrumentalization. One question to dwell on is the utilitarianism perspective of degrading women in the name of good business and persuasion okay if it suppose to make the life's of others better?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/dining/reviews/28rest.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

By FRANK BRUNI

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-01-29/news/17914655_1_vegetarian-boss-meat

BY JOSE MARTINEZ

https://ecampus.unt.edu/webct/urw/lc5122011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Carol Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat

google images

Angelica Bigsby

Wilderness: Origins and Evolution of the Concept

The movie Avatar begins with showing the skyline of the Eywa’s planet to the treetops. In the movie, the Master Narrative of Avatar is that a planet so connected to itself and the life on it that Eywa, a narrative self, brings all living creatures, civilized, wild, and savage alike, together to preserve itself from the humans that have an Anthropocentrism mentality. The purpose for the Avatar Program (mission to Pandora) is to persuade the Na’vi the native tribe, to move away from the Unobtainium ore deposits so they can gather these resources for their personal human need. However, not everyone realized that the Na’vi, worship all of the natural resources that their world has to provide.

The company that sent the humans were led by base commander Parker Selfridge and the military commander Colonel Miles Quaritch, which had a dualism approach to the mission in that they believed that the humans were inferior to the Avatars and were going to take the minerals Unobtainium, (a Paradigm for humans as a potent source of energy that sells for millions a kilogram) that can bring cheap power back to a dying Earth from the land, at any cost. The Organic Worldview/Holism of Pandora (the planet that the Avatars lived on) is Eywa. Jake Sully and Dr. Grace Augustine were taught the Romanticism of Pandora by Neytiri (a female Avatar of the Na’vi tribe that Jake met on his first trip to the Frontier of the Avatar people and the wilderness of the Avatar) and the Na’vi people. After the trip Jake Sully has an abundance of information to say about Pandora. He explains the importance of the “Home Tree”. Home Tree sits on a major supply of Unobtainium; however Jake Sully’s time for the mission to get the resources are running out. His only choices are to convince the Na’vi to move in the next three months, or the Colonel will take matters into his own hands.

Soon enough several months pass by, and it shows that Jake is starting to change as the more he gets experience as an Avatar in the Pandora world. As a result to this the Colonel tells him that his tour is up, and he will be returning back to Earth that very same day, and he tried to give him an incentive by telling him that he will be getting his legs fixed when he returns. However, he objects to being shipped out and wants to delay his departure because he says that he is so close to being accepted into the Na’vi tribe. The Colonel lets him return but felt as if he didn’t get the task done fast enough, so he took things into his own hands and went with soldiers to get the job done himself. As a result of the learning process, Jake realized that what the company was doing was brutal and selfish thus ultimately becoming an Avatar at the Sublime Tree of Life after Eywa called out to all living things to conquer the humans.

In Wilderness: Origins and Evolution of the Concept, Alan Wilson, explains that when society believes that they are improving/developing nature, which the way the Avatar Program scientist and military viewed the mission to Pandora, isn’t always the right decision. While the humans invaded the Na’vi’s land and destroyed their “Home Tree” for Unobtainium ore deposits to get rich. It showed that the Colonel and Parker Selfridge did not realize how one tree could have such an intrinsic value, and that it can bring a civilization together in a time need.








Alan Wilson, states, “Aldo Leopold, founder of the Wilderness Society, explicitly inverts the former utilitarian belief that society invests nature with value by ‘improving’ and ‘developing’ it, arguing instead that “the raw wilderness gives definition and meaning to the human enterprise.” Similarly, the natural world used to be seen as the servant of civilized society, now it has been elevated by some to a position of mastery. The land should again be given the freedom to be ’self willed’.”


This quote sums up by saying that the Humans and Military didn’t think about the Nav’i’s when they were trying to gather the Unobtainium ore deposits for their personal needs. Never once did they think twice about the Worldview for them, and destroying another civilization and thinking that it couldn’t affect them in some kind of way.

Dualism in Foreign Lands

The blockbuster movie Avatar is set in the future on a beautiful moon that inhabited ten foot tall Na’vi. The movie is form the point of view of Jack the soldier who was injured soldier he is told that has new assignment to be transported on to body of an Avatar to help convenes the locals to move off there land to utilize an natural mineral that is on the Na’vi’s land. “It obsesses all manner of scientists who “love” her to death in an attempt to ‘penetrate and understand all her secrets. (Collard pg.4) The scientist within the movie is using technology to take advantage of nature not make it better. Visually the there is a very obvious dualism between the natives and the humans. Humans are masculine depending on logic, machines, progress, greed, affluence and overall science as a reason for its actions. At some point Jake describes what earth is like at that time dirty used with no vegetation, it probably is cold polluted. While the Na’vi reminiscent of people of the world before they were colonized by Europe, have an much feminine view point, with there focus being an spiritual connection to nature, valuing life, emotions and tradition over progress. The world is lush and colorful full of life is abundant, the landscapes are something to marvel at and respect. Which leads to linking postulates in every aspect of the cultures and there ideas, the treatment of each group’s world is reflective of their overall ideals. Unable not make the “right” decision it is up to the humans who just so happen to be at the to of the pyramid hierarchical making their voice the master narrative which also the most profitable. On multiple occasions the Parker the manager of the project referred to the Na’vi as savages and blue monkeys, his tone and language gives off the feeling that he thinks that is better then the natives in everyway mostly intellectually. “ The poor are mapped as animal an as children”(Plumwood pg.45) to humans unable to see the true potential of what is in front of them This is the mentality of most of the humans using radical execution, it is easier to think of them as the other an not like oneself. Towards the end of the movie when final battle is taking place the soldiers are unable to feel sympathetic to natives because of Relational Definition because they are not like them it is easier to kill them and destroy there home. “Identify is expressed most strongly in dominate conception of reason, and gives rise to a dualised structure of otherness an negation.” Plumwood pg 42) The patriarchy of the elite male how only cares about the bottom line how much revenue can be generated. Once against the master of the story is the one with the most influence and power which always boils down to money. So the one calling the shots always excludes the other or the defiant ones. The science that resonated with me is the last battle between Jack and the Colonel. Jake, who has now switched sides to join up with the underdogs to defect his own people. This story really is about Jake realizing that his ideals of brute force isn’t the best way to persuade people. So Jack gets injured again and it is up to Neytiri to defect the Colonel, this was one the most symbolic part of the movie. “The hunter loves not nature but how he feels in it as he stacks his pray”. (Collard pg. 4) The Colonel brute, cold logical sexist racist murdering against the ethereal Neytiri pure, loving Na’vi fighting to save her home. There clothing even their weapons used representative of their cultures and society, the knife simple minimal damage vs. the gun which is loud is unnecessarily cruel when used. In the end The Na’vi are able to over come the intruders kicking them off their plant, there for restoring peace to the Navi and nature itself.

Avatar (2009)

Plumwood and Collard Reading

https://ecampus.unt.edu/webct/urw/lc5122011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Angelica Bigsby

The Disenchantment of a Golden God

The revolutionary degenerate art/ political advertisements created by the Guerrilla Girls have been causing uneasiness to the status quo for over two decades. In 1985 a group a of female artist were outraged that the Museum of Modern Art, an representative of America Art community as a whole, had only 13 woman and even less minority artist of the one hundred and sixty nine featured in the show. They became the Guerrilla Girls, and are unafraid of stepping on a few toes. Their use of cleaver imagery and text they are able to uncover and bring for fount injustice within the art realm, The Guerrilla Girls have since expanded their fight to the theater and movie industry. The Guerrilla Girls are always shown with Guerrilla masks and take on pseudonyms of dead female artists, and have released books and billboards.

The art piece “ The Anatomically correct Oscar” was a controversial billboard, which was erected to bring to light that women and people of color are underrepresented at one of the most prestigious awards in the world. The master story of the Academy Award is that the best of best win the prestigious win the award, but many fail to see that almost all of the winners are white males, is this because they really are the best within their category, or are those who are equally good aren’t even nominated simply because of there outer appearance.

Every year the Academy Awards are watched by millions and are thought to be a complete representation of the best of what the film industry has to offer, but this allusion of chiffon gown and tuxedos is a lie. The real story is the ones that managing the awards and all of the film industry are the masters of this story controlling are the ones that cast the parts, finance the movies, and hold all the power.

“Dualism can also be seen as an alienated from of differentiation, in which power construes and constructs difference in terms of an inferior and alien realm” (Plumwood 42) The one that holds the cards controls the game, and know one wants to upset the status quo. Intersectionality is very evident, in 1963 was the first year that an African American won awarded for Best Actor, this was only after he was snubbed five years earlier. If one does not in the mold of what is deemed desirable then they are rejected “and male ideals which lay claim to universality for men often invoke the elite make identity of the master” ((Morgan 1989:121) Plumwood46) The Awards are formed and “…defined by exclusion … “((Morgan 1989:121) Plumwood 46) by not excluding the minority it is greatest way to maintain control. The main dualism is the privilege powerful rich white man against the world, and the later is winning creating a false idea of equality. When in actuality the true “ way of looking at the world characterize of the dominant, white, male Eurocentric ruling class, a way of dividing up the world that puts an omnipotent subject at the centered and constructs marginal Others as sets of negative qualities. (Nancy Hartsock, Pulmwood 44) This mind set is so engraved in peoples minds, meaning everyone and the media is partially to blame, adding to stereotypes that have been viewed for centuries In the words of one of the greatest minds philosopher Aristotle the“ male by nature are superior, and the female is inferior”(46), this idea has unfortunately rains true within society, without any oppositions to wrongs. It isn’t a coincidence that the Oscar remains the ideal Greek male, perfect commanding and should always be envied of all others, a golden reminder of the many who had to fight for the right to stand on a stage bask in the glory of genuinely being the best.

The Anatomically correct Oscar billboard campaign was put up in 2002 on the sunset strip in Hollywood California. At the time many believed that the Oscars were fair, with their decisions of the winners. Sense then a woman has one for best director, and many more people of color have won awards that they might have one before. It took a bunch of crazy feminist in guerrilla mask to show how truly barbaric and oppressive our “seemingly progressive society.”

Plumwood reading

https://ecampus.unt.edu/webct/urw/lc5122011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

Guerrilla Girls website

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

Angelica Bigsby

Destroying the Livable World

Avatar has been pointed out since its release, as a movie that illustrates the anthropocentrism felt by world powers today. In the movie, the military is on a foreign planet to obtain a needed resource known as “unobtainium”. A peaceful tribe called the Na’vi live on this planet. The Na’vi worship the natural resources, so much as to even have a master narrative in which a tree is a god-like figure. The military has been given orders to take the “unobtainium” by any means necessary. The native tribe does not want to give up their sacred lands to be destroyed. The Colonel of the military does not see the (narrative) self of the Na’vi. After an extended period of time trying to talk with the Na’vi shows no success a massive battle breaks out in which hundreds of Na’vi, and their environment dies.

The tree where the Na’vi live is known as “Home Tree” and sits atop the largest concentration of “unobtainium”. In one scene the military decides to destroy the “Home Tree” knowing it is the home of the native people. Before tearing down “Home Tree” they choose to “gas-out” the Na’vi to be “humane”. After they are forced out of their habitat, the Na’vi, choking, are forced to watch “Home Tree” fall to the ground. At this point the movie visuals switch from bright blues and greens, to dark greys and black illustrating the pain a viewer can see in the Na’vi’s eyes. When the shot switches to the military men, there are smiles on their faces.

(http://www.bluemousemonkey.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/avatar-movie-lush-landscape-600x338.jpg)

There is a paradigm in Avatar in which the Military were unable to see that the Na’vi viewed the environment and “Home Tree” as valuable for more than money. Conversely, the Na’vi were unable to see the intentions of the military and that they would not be able to fight them alone.

There is a common dualism in Avatar of feminine/masculine. The military is masculine, taking down the feminine Na’vi and the Colonel of the military refers to himself as “pappa”, while referring to the soldiers under him as “ladies”.

In “Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World” Carolyn Merchant points out atomism which is how the military viewed the planet the Na’vi lived on; as having individual parts for them to pick (unobtainium) and destroy (“Home Tree”). The Military in Avatar have a Mechanistic Worldview seen in their willingness to destroy not only “Home Tree” but the entire environment just to dig up “unobtainium”, and laughing when people try to point out to them that those are living things. The Military’s decision to “gas-out” the Na’vi from “Home Tree” in order to tear it down is an example of reductionism because they is was an easy way to get them out and was “humane”. The military was not able to see the individual, in the Na’vi or even in their own ranks; everyone was the same. Carolyn Merchant states that

“the organic framework was for many centuries sufficiently integrative to override commercial development and technological innovation, the acceleration of economic change… began to undermine the organic unity of the cosmos and society.”

This quote sums up the way that the Military came to the Na’vi’s home, and at first did not destroy it. Then when the need became to great, the paradigm grew stronger and the environment was destroyed. 

(http://reeldealmw.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html)

Avatar Midterm: Cross-Cultural Conservation

Jake Sully is caught between two essentially different cultures. He initially come from the humans’, whose master narrative is the inherited belief that the world is theirs, and natural resources should be utilized for profit. They believe their culture and way of life is the only way to survive, and thus rely on utilizing and colonizing alien worlds after Earth’s resources have been depleted. The movie takes place in the year 2154, where the RDA corporation is trying to convince the native people of the Earth-like moon Pandora, to move away from their native village of Hometree, so the corporation can mine the rich deposit of Unobtainium underneath it. Jake is to become an ambassador to the Na’vi, learn their ways, and find a way to make them peacefully leave their ancestrial home. 

From his first interaction with the Na’vi Jake starts to change. After first meeting Neytiri, the Na’vi princess, her mother tells Jake that other Sky People have tried to learn the Na’vi way before, but says, “It is hard to fill a cup which is already full.” They accept Jake into their manhood ritual so they can learn about the sky people warriors, but by the time his training is over, Jake is more sympathetic to the Na’vi cause. He admires how they respect their world and all living things. How they protect their “Earth Mother,” Eywa, unlike the humans that killed theirs. He knows that they are entrenched into their beliefs, their paradigms, and their home, and will never give up their home to the humans. The humans, now seeing the Na’vi has hostile enemies, Jake included, attack and destroy Hometree. In the most cliché of ways, Jake eventually gains their undying trust and becomes their leader. Eventually Jake and the Na’vi force the humans to leave Pandora.

The story of Jake and the Na’vi is one told a hundred times before: a story of Heroic ethics, a story where a white male is made aware of a marginalized peoples and attacks his own people. By doing this he ignores the billions of people affected by the underlying problem of colonialism and resource utilization, dooming his original people to Eco-disasters and most likely the exploitation of different worlds. Instead of helping to fix their beliefs, he reinforces the “Us versus Them” mentality. He dooms those people to their dualistic beliefs, “back to their dying world,” back to their doomed way of life.

This movie if formed around dualisms. Both sides of the battle are based on the other being completely evil. There is no middle ground. Gaard says we “need to  improve and expand  our knowledge and understanding  of nondominant cultures by reading about those cultures, building working relationships  and friendships across the boundaries of culture, and visiting other cultural and ethnic communities in away that best positions us to learn.” We must become World-travelers, allowing our ideas and Self to be transformed. Only then will we be able to understand the eco-community, all sides of the story, and form resolutions that benefit all those involved. In Avatar, Jake Sully has ultimately changed nothing. He’s momentarily prevented the destruction of Pandora by stopping a corporation with a small unit of military forces. He’s done nothing to try to fix the fundamental belief system the humans are locked into, instead only blindly following the new ideas he’s found with the Na’vi.